Pages

Followers

Saturday, September 29, 2012

Cinderella was a masochist,
With feet trapped in unforgiving glass
Merely to curry favor with a prince.
The lesson remains unlearned,
We teeter about in stiletto heels,
Suffering the origami-like
Folding of flesh and bone
Just to satisfy the gods of fashion,
Our anguished steps inducing pain
In bodies shifted out of alignment,
Sadistic devices that would make
The Inquisitors of old envious.

What would they say to know
That five hundred years later
Half the populace
Volunteers for torture?

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Every Sunday finds her
Driving along County Road 6,
A dozen roses in the passenger seat,
Making her way to a simple stone marker
Under the swaying pines.

Some days she talks of the kids,
Her job, his mother,
Other times she sits in silence,
But each visit ends the same way,
With burgundy lips on his granite inscription
And a whispered, “I’ll always love you.”

~~~ This poem was written for a prompt from Imaginary Garden with Real Toads, giving us the option of either writing a form poem (sevenling) or using a photo from the prompt for our inspiration. The picture I chose was from Margaret Bednar, you can find her poetry and photography at her blog Art Happens 365.

Over at Imaginary Garden with Real Toads this week we were introduced to the poetic form landai, a two line form of poetry written by the women of Afghanistan. You can follow the link to learn more about this form. Here are a few of my attempts to write landai.

He wraps his sins in the cloak of tradition
But her blood still seeps through.

Her wings damaged struggling against iron bars,
She still dreams of escaping into the saffron skies.

The scars of war scorch the earth;
Tears of the hopeful will bring healing.

Even with the stones of oppression threatening destruction,
The fiery spirit of the poet will survive.

Friday, September 21, 2012

The worst thing
Was not the fire,
The weeks in the hospital,
Or the scars left behind.
The worst thing
Was not the secret
I was forced to keep,
The time spent without
The most basic necessities,
Or the bullying taunts
About out of date clothes
That reeked of kerosene.
The worst thing
Was not the betrayal of trust,
The bruises on body and soul,
The pain twisting through my life,
Or the loss of my independence.

The worst thing that ever happened to me…
I stopped believing in myself.

~~~ This poem was written for a prompt from Poetic Asides asking us to write about the worst thing that ever happened to us.

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Death first brushed
His bony fingers
Through my world
When I was a child,
Leaving a vague sense of sadness
In a girl too young
to comprehend such finality.
As I grew older,
Those bony fingers
Touched my life again,
My grief intermingling
With teenage angst.
These days the fingers of death
Have me firmly in their grasp,
Plucking away loved ones
With unrelenting impunity,
An insidious caress
That continues to tighten
And one day will reduce me
To little more than dust.

~~~ This poem was written for a prompt from Poetic Bloomings for their poetic memoir series, this time asking us to write about the our first experience with death.

Friday, September 14, 2012

Her untamed her rebel heart
Still beats with the rhythms
of Souixsie and the Banshees,
the Sex Pistols,
the Clash,
her blood churning
with anarchy
as she runs the halls,
scissors in hand,
writing codes
on the wall
in invisible ink,
knowing those
who have given in
to conformity
will never understand.

~~~ This poem was written for my prompt over at Poetry Jam this week asking to capture a moment in time. Seeing Air Force One fly overhead on its way back to Washington, D.C. after the terrorist attacks of September 11 was one moment I know will live in my mind forever.

Monday, September 10, 2012

Writing a poem about you,
More than twenty years removed,
Is not that hard to do.

Icy blue eyes,
Lanky frame,
Strong hands
That could not resist
My curves,
Indelible marks
In my memory.
My taste for
Biker-cowboy-badass swagger
Was first found at your lips.
Even now
I lose myself in you
When Jeff Healey plays
In a random radio moment.
The faintest wisp
Of your cologne
Makes my heart race,
My eyes desperately searching,
Only to find unknown faces
That aren’t yours.
Every emotion
From hope to heartache
Is forever tinged
With your essence,
An echoing undercurrent
That shades my entire world.

Writing a poem about you…
That’s the easy part.
The real challenge
Is writing a poem that isn’t.

~~~ This poem was written for the poetic memoir series of prompts from Poetic Bloomings. This week we were asked to think about the first time we fell in love.

Saturday, September 8, 2012

Hell descended upon the prairie, bringing with it caustic heat that destroyed crops and ignited tempers. The earth cracked as all life-giving moisture vanished. The natives prayed for relief but their dances around sacred fires only brought sweaty frustration. Finally, one blessed day, the heavens opened and poured out renewing rains, restoring plants, people, and faith.

Drops of revival
After an extended drought
Can soothe a parched soul.

~~~ This poem was written for the haibun challenge at Poetic Asides. You can find more information on the hiabun form here.

~~~ This poem was written using words from the Sunday Whirl a few weeks ago…a little late to actually link the poem up over there but still like giving them a bit of credit, great little community of writers! I will be sharing this one over at Poetic Asides for this week’s prompt of memory poems.

I don’t remember much about that day,
Just broken movie clips haunting my mind,
The orange glow of the flames in the back seat,
My tumble out the door onto the pavement,
The two women with the kind eyes
Holding me on the tiled counter
Next to the sink pouring water
Over my charred skin.

But the scars, those have stayed with me.
As a child they were all I could see
Looking in my broken mirror,
The grotesque bubbling of my skin
From my chubby fingers
up my arm to my shoulder,
So sure that everyone else saw
The hideous beast lurking
In my mirror just as I did.

Scars, at least the visible kind,
Fade with the passing of time,
And today no one even notices
If they do not already know they are there.

It’s the invisible scars
From voluntary fires
That still persist.

~~~ This poem was written in response to a prompt from Poetry Jam asking us to think about a personal challenge we have faced. I’m also linking this up over at Poetic Asides for the prompt about memory.

~~~ Note: The image I used with this poem actually started out as one of my senior pictures, with much editing added.

About Me

Disclaimer

For those who are curious about my poetry...my poems are not necessarily autobiographical. Certainly some are snapshots of my life, in some I've written a different ending to my story, and the rest are purely creations of my overactive imagination. At any rate, feel free to read and enjoy. Comments and feedback are greatly appreciated.